Emmy Noether: The Mother of Modern Algebra

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This book, written primarily for the young adult reader, tells the life story of Emmy Noether, the most important female mathematician of our time. Because no one expected her to grow into an important scientist, the records of her early life are sketchy. After all, it was assumed that she would grow up to be a wife and mother. Instead, she was a genius who chose a distinctive path. The author has woven this charming story of Emmy Noether’s life around the events that appear in the oral and written records, fleshing out the story with details about life in Germany at the time and what we know about how bright children explore mathematics.

Advance Praise

“This book paints a picture of one of the most fascinating figures of 20th century mathematics, Emmy Noether. Her great accomplishments filled her life with meaning and happiness, even though she lacked some of the attributes usually considered part of a gratifying life: marriage, a family, and wealth. But mathematics and disciples sufficed for her.

—Peter Lax, Recipient of the Abel Prize, 2005

“How appealing to teenage girls that a homely girl finds fame and happiness not with Prince Charming but with making brand new mathematics about rings and fields, the bricks and mortar of a new area of mathematics, modern algebra.”

—Cathleen Morawetz, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU

About the Author

Tent grew up in western Massachusetts and graduated from Amherst Regional High School and Mt. Holyoke College. She has a second bachelors degree and a masters degree from University of Alabama at Birmingham. Tent retired from teaching middle school mathematics at the Altamont School in June 2007. She is the author of The Prince of Mathematics: Carl Friedrich Gauss.